Category: Spain

Monday, July 4, 2016
Acebo to Ponferrada
Day  34

The highlight of the day was having lunch at a cafe across the street from the Ponferrada castle, which is the best preserved castle of the Knights Templar in Europe.  It was truly an amazing view.

At breakfast in Acebo, I stood up and wished all the Americans present a Happy 4th of July. There were quite a few Americans there, so a small cheer went up. I told James that I would like to celebrate the day somehow, maybe by a special dinner. Several of the Americans decided to celebrate by staying an extra day at the comfortable hotel complex, sunning by the pool and having Spanish “barbeque.” Not for us, but it sounded nice.

I booked a taxi to take us to Ponferrada at 11 am. In the meantime, I planned to walk back a short way down the road to the small village and look around, but instead I settled down and took advantage of the good WiFi to catch up on the blog.

Once in Ponferrada and checked in, we walked around the corner and had lunch across the street from the Knights Templar castle. I had planned to do laundry in the afternoon, but instead napped and read.  In the evening, we had a very small 4th of July celebration–we ordered a la carte instead of the Pilgrims’ Menu.  It made a nice change.

Steps: 3,201

For a couple of additional photos from outside the castle, see our page for July 4th: July 4, 2016: Acebo to Ponferrada

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Sunday, July 3, 2016
Rabanal del Camino to Acebo
Day 33

Our trusty taxi driver phoned late last night to say that he had a fare going to Rabanal and could drive us to Acebo if we wished. Absolutely we wished!  He stopped  at the Iron Cross at our request and took photos of us.

We made it to the Iron Cross! This is where pilgrims traditionally deposit a rock that they  have carried along with them on the Camino. It symbolizes laying down a concern or burden that has been weighing them down.

I picked up my rock right outside of St. Jean-Pied-de-Port; it was fan shaped and reminded me of the Camino cockleshell. James wanted a river rock and diligently searched through several stream beds until he found what he was looking for.  Both of our rocks ended their journey on this day.

I had two concerns attached to my rock.  I am not sure that I can actually lay one of them down, but maybe St. James will give me a bit of help. Our friendly taxi driver–our third trip with him!–took this photo of us, using my tablet.  He told us that some years back the pole with the cross was actually cut down by a malicious (or nutty) individual.  The government replaced it, this time with interior reinforcement to thwart any future attempt to cut down the cross.

I wondered why pilgrims laid down their burdens here rather than right outside Santiago de Compostela. The taxi driver, Juan Manuel Garcia Cuesta, noted that back in the Middle Ages the Camino journey could take six months or more, so being a couple of weeks from the end of the journey felt like the end to them. I was a bit sorry to set my rock down.

After checking in at the auberge complex in which we are staying, we walked into the village, where we had lunch in the backyard of a cafe. The cafe advertised itself as a “terrace,” but really it was just a backyard, with a few tables with umbrellas set up. Next to us was a line with pilgrims’ clothes drying.  Boy, those clothes looked raggedy. They  have been used hard on the Camino. Three children scrambled around playing on some small plastic backyard  playground equipment–a minature slide, rocking horse, auto. This lunch didn’t quite reach the bucolic level of the lunch we had with the donkeys, geese, and chickens, but it was close.

In contrast, the aubergue complex we are staying in is quite swanky. It has a swimming pool, quite a large one–the first swimming pool we have seen in Spain. The place was mobbed, with two large lunchtime gatherings and many, many family groups, plus several bands of teenagers. Of course it was Sunday, a traditional day in Spain for family outings and lunches. And this is probably the only swimming pool for miles around.  Several of the pilgrims staying here, enchanted by the pool and the other comforts, have decided to stay over an extra day. I have to say that sitting on the terrace (a real terrace) looking out over the valley, with a cool breeze flowing in, was very enjoyable. Good WiFi, too, which is wonderful.  No struggling to up/download.

Steps Today: 5,372

For more photos, see our page for July 3:
July 3, 2016: Rabanal del Camino to Acebo

Saturday, July 2, 2016
Astorga to Rabanal del Camino
Day 32

After breakfast, we walked down to the chocolate factory. Walking through Astorga, every other shop is selling chocolate or ice cream or sweets. It turns out that Astorga is the Chocolate Capital of Spain. In the past, there were 400 artesanal chocolate-making “factories” in Astorga. Once mass production machines came on line, the number of these small factories decreased, but there are still six workshops in Astorga making chocolate in the old way.

Astorga has a chocolate museum, which both James and I visited.  It made me think. Chocolate comes from Mexico originally, but I don’t remember ever seeing anything like this chocolate  museum in Mexico. Maybe there is one, but if so I never came across it.

It was very interesting  to learn how chocolate is made. The Astorga chocolate connection evidently goes back to Hernan Cortes, who offered chocolate as part of his daughter’s dowry when she married into a prominent Astorgan  family.

We had lunch in a cafe in the town, where we again ran into Tom from Germany.  (This is our second Tom from Germany, so now we call the other Tom “Tom from Frankfurt.”) This Tom is traveling alone and has kept pace with us for several weeks, and we regularly run into him. It was this Tom who suggested yesterday that we visit the chocolate museum. Great suggestion, Tom. Thanks.

Then, following lunch, the hotel called a taxi for us to go to Rabanal del Camino. Our taxi driver was the same one who had driven us to the emergency room the day before. He was very knowledgeable about the region and told us about the Camino in this area.

Steps Today: 6,897

You can see more photos on our page for July 2nd:
July 2, 2016: Astorga to Rabanal del Camino

Friday, July 1, 2016
Hospital de Orbigo to Astoria
Day 31

We had a lovely breakfast on the terrace overlooking the Hospital de Orbigo jousting field. Then, off to catch the bus to Astorga.

After checking into our wonderful hotel right on the Plaza Mayor in Astorga, we booked a taxi to go to the emergency room to have James’s foot looked at by a doctor. It’s official: he has plantar fasciitis. The doctor prescribed strong Ibuprofen, a cream for foot massages, and above all rest for his foot. With the doctor’s orders ringing in our ears, we deposited James back at the hotel while I went to visit Gaudi’s  palace and the cathedral.

When I lived in Barcelona so many years ago, I regularly saw Catelon architect Gaudi’s unfinished cathedral. I didn’t care for it that much. Like Michener preferring  Romanesque to Gothic, sometimes I prefer plainer rather than flamboyant, and in my opinion Gaudi’s cathedral in Barcelona just takes things too far.

It was therefore a pleasure to see the restrained lines of his Archbishop’s Palace in Astorga. The palace now serves as a museum, and is filled with wonderful artwork.  Items from the Roman period are consigned to the basement, as perhaps is fitting for an Archbishop’s former place of residence. There is a room with every sort of Santiago statue that you can imagine: Santiago reading, Santiago riding, Santiago praying, etc.  I also visited the Astorga cathedral and its museum.

On the way back, I bought chocolates for James and an Astorga pin for my cap.

Dinner on the plaza in front of our hotel allowed us to watch the mechanical figures on the clock tower of the municipal building strike the quarter hours. What a treat, to balance the bad news about James’s foot.

Steps Today: 11,367

For more photos of Astorga, please see the page for July 1:
July 1, 2016: Hospital de Orbigo to Astorga

Thursday, June 30, 2016
Villavante to Hospital de Orbigp
Day 30

From Villavante, the walk into Hospital de Orbigo was only three kilometers or so.  Once we checked into the hotel, we rested, and I read and worked on the blog. James’s foot has not improved at all. At dinner, we chatted with a German couple from Frankfurt. I had met the gentleman previously, after the Pilgrims’ Blessing in León.

Hospital de Orbigo is the site of a famous historical feat of arms. In the Middle Ages, knights from all across Europe came to Spain to protect pilgrims from raids by Moors and attacks by brigands. It seems that one Spanish knight, Suero de Quinones, became annoyed by other knights boasting that they were the bravest, or the strongest, or the best fighter along the Camino. He therefore challenged all comers “to put up or shut up” by meeting him in single combat at the bridge in Hospital de Orbigo.

Come they did, and Suero began jousting against them. After a while, nine other Spanish knights joined him, and they too took on all challengers. It seems that Suero was an outstanding fighter, and he won all of his jousts. Chroniclers  of the time reported that as many as 700 jousts occurred over a period of thirty days.

The Church finally stopped the jousting after one knight was accidentally killed (by his own lance  when it broke). After that, at least during Suero’s  lifetime, there was no more boasting by other knights along Suero’s stretch of the Camino.

From the balcony of our hotel, we overlooked the modern jousting field. Each year thousands pour into Hospital de Orbigo on June 1st to see a series of jousts held on the field pictured above to commemorate Suero’s feats of bravery. Suero was also madly in love with a lady, and wore an iron collar once a week to prove his love. What a knight!

I was torn about whether to post the jousting field or a good photo of the Roman bridge, but since I have already posted the Roman bridge at Puente La Reina and since the  story of Suero de Quinones  is so unique, I went with the jousting field.  You can see the Roman bridge on the left side of the photo above.

Steps Today: 11,367

For other photos, see the page for June 30:
June 30, 2016: Villavante to Hospital de Orbigo

Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Leon to Villar de Mazarife (Villavante)
Day 29

On our last morning in Leon, who should appear in the hotel’s breakfast room but Father Pascal, the priest who gave the Pilgrim’s Blessing the night before.  We chatted for a bit. He is one of eight priests at St. Isidoro’s.  That sounds like a lot, but a number of them go out and serve at rural parishes that have no resident priest.  In a last walk around Leon, I saw an ancient plaza whose cobblestones appear to be just the way they  were hundreds of years ago.  For additional photos, go to our page for June 29.

While  James rested, I took a last walk around the city to see a few places I hadn’t had a chance to see.  Then with James, we took a bus to Villar de Mazarife, where we had lunch, and which was our scheduled stopping point for the day.  Our hotel for the night was actually farther down the road, in Villavante.  The hotel owner picked us up and drove us to his place, a charming Rural Hotel.  There we had dinner family style with other  guests: a Spanish couple from Mallorca; a Mexican- American couple from California; and three Americans.  It was a very convivial evening, conducted in Spanish and English, with lots of jokes and stories.  The Mexican-American pilgrim is a dedicated marathoner, but he said that the Camino is taxing even his endurance, and his wife had outpaced him that day.  James’s foot is still hurting, and I told him that I think it is time to seek out a doctor, but he doesn’t want to.  (When we lunched with Veronica and Randy back in Reliegos, they each said that they had already been to the hospital twice.  Obviously pilgrims are giving doctors in northern Spain a lot of business, and in particular a lot of experience with foot problems!)

Steps: 13,998
 
There are additional photographs at:
June 29, 2016: Leon to Villar de Mazarife (Villavante)

Tuesday, June 28, 2016
León
Day 28

We had breakfast but then lazed around the hotel since James’s foot continues to hurt.  At noon we went down to go to the St Isidoro Museum and Pantheon and lucked into a guided tour in Spanish.  St. Isidoro in León is an amazing place. The church is lovely and houses the bones of this early Spanish saint. The pantheon has tombs of princes and nobility.

The museum is the home of the Holy Grail. Photos weren’t permitted in the museum, so I don’t have an original photo of the Grail. The one above is a photo from the book I am currently reading (yes, yet another book) about the Grail. The book recounts new research undertaken at the Al Azhar University archives in Cairo that strengthens the provenance of St. Isidoro’s chalice.

While there are contending chalices in some other countries, none is as well documented as this one, according to the authors. It is truly a beautiful piece, and it gives one goosebumps to think of being so close  to such a sacred object.

After lunch at a nearby restaurant, James rested while I went to a washateria and caught up on laundry.  That evening, there was a concert in the cloister of St. Isidoro. We went early and managed to snag chairs.

The most memorable piece, at least for me, was a reading of segments out of Don Quijote, accompanied by music specifically composed for those segments. As the beautifully voiced gentleman read the story of the Man of La Mancha and his trusty sidekick Sancho Panza, we heard the wind rustling through the fields and listened to the clip-clop of their steeds’ hooves.  It was a standing-room only audience.

After the concert, we had a late dinner in St. Isidoro Plaza, where a lot of the musicians dropped by for a post- concert drink and tapa.  This was the last night of León’s festival, and clearly music lovers from all over the city turned out for this concluding concert.

Steps Today: 10,962

I will post various photos of St. Isidoro, taken over our two days there, on our page for June 28:
June 28, 2018: León

Monday, June 27, 2016
Mansilla de Las Mulas to León
Day 27

After two days of long walks, we took the bus to León. The symbol of the former kingdom of León (current Spanish province of León) is of course the lion, and no doubt many assume that León has always been the name of this place. In fact, the name was a shortening of the name of one of the Roman legions, which was based here.

León is a lovely city, James’s favorite so far.  The cathedral  is so beautiful, with more stained glass than any other cathedral in Europe except for Chartres in France.  Our photos cannot capture the beauty of that glass, since the brilliant light  tends to bleed the color to just white. James Michener writes about the glowing cathedral glass in Iberia.  Indeed, the architects of the cathedral stretched the amount of wall given over to glass to the maximum, making an already unstable (due to being built over Roman baths and other pre-existing structures) building even more unstable. A cupola collapsed at one point, and there  was real fear that the whole cathedral would tumble down before  extensive renovations were carried out.

It is amazing to learn that this whole cathedral was built in just fifty years by a town with a population of only 5,000. Its  purity of line was no doubt helped  by that rapid building spree. The León Cathedral was built to compete with the Burgos Cathedral, and indeed it does. Both are magnificent, but they are very, very different. As it happens, León is in the middle of celebrating a week of festivities in honor of St. Peter and St. Paul, with many cultural activities around town.

Our hotel is part of St. Isidoro Monastery. We are so lucky to be staying in this historic and gorgeous place. Right after checking in, we and other hotel guests were treated to a tour of the monastery by the hotel manager. After lunch, we headed over to see the cathedral and its museum, then had sangria on the Plaza in front of the cathedral.  Spain had a soccer  game that evening in the European Cup, and young people draped in Spanish flags were all  over the plaza while loud rock music blared out from a party bus.  It was really a happening scene, though to walk out from the serenity of the cathedral to rock & roll was a bit jarring.

I posted a photo of us on the American Pilgrims on the Camino (APOC) webpage, and we received lots of positive feedback from that. Then back to the hotel, where James rested while I went to the  Pilgrims’ mass at 7 pm. The quick mass was followed  by a Pilgrims’ Blessing. I was asked to translate Father Pascual’s words of welcome and blessing into English, which I did. It was a very beautiful blessing.

I gathered up James and we went to an Italian restaurant for a change of menu.  After that, we headed for an outdoor pop concert  being given as part of the festival. We stayed until the end, then back to the hotel at midnight.  James enjoyed the music.

Steps Today: 13,188

I took many, many photos of León, and I will post a selection. See the page for June 27:
June 27, 2016: Mansilla de las Mulas to Leon

Sunday, June 26
El Burgo Ranero to Mansilla de Las Mullas
Day 26

When I passed this sign for a flying school out in the middle of nowhere, I couldn’t help but think about terrorism, the scourge of our time. It was an eerie foreshadowing of the next day’s news about the Istanbul airport bombing. Before I delayed my trip by a month, I had been scheduled to transit that airport around this date on my return trip home.

Having learned about the paucity of buses in general on the Meseta and the specific lack of buses on weekends, I did not even investigate the bus situation. We set out walking on what turned out to be another cool day with a good road surface. James lagged behind me, and when I stopped for lunch at Reliegos, it took him quite a while to catch up. I hadn’t realized how far behind he was. When he arrived, he said that his foot was hurting.

We met up with Veronica from Romania again, and had lunch with her and Randy from Miami. Veronica, it turns out, is walking the Camino to raise funds for a charity.  She explained that volunteerism and giving to charities is not well developed in Romania  due to its communist background, so that is a field she is working to develop. And Randy is a Foreign Service brat, so he and James had that in common. An interesting  lunch, then six more kilometers to our designated stopping place for the night.

Steps Today: 31,031

A few photos of this stretch of the Camino are posted on the page for June 26.
June 26, 2016: El Burgo Ranero to Mansilla de Las Mullas

 

Saturday, June 25
Puerta de Sahagun to El Burgo Ranero
Day 25

It turned out our laundry wasn’t ready the previous night at 9:00 pm, as I thought had been promised, or even at 9:00 am the following morning. After we finally got the laundry back, we sorted and packed it as quickly as possible, but even so, for the first time during the trip, we had the  luggage delivery guy pounding on our door asking about our luggage.

Back on the road again, we had good walking conditions. A cool day, and a good road surface. Along the way, we met Veronica from Romania at a crossroads where we were puzzling out which of three roads to follow. We ran into her again at a cafe at lunchtime.

James is tired of always seeing the same options on the menu. Our “mixed salad” at lunch consisted of tuna, green olives, and tomatoes – no lettuce whatsoever.

On the Camino, there are plentiful reminders of pilgrims who have gone before us, and frequent reminders of our mortality.  I haven’t seen any statistics on how many pilgrims die while walking the Camino, but given how much it taxes everyone, even the physically fit, I am not surprised to come across memorial crosses like the one above. Of course, the movie The Way starts with a father trying to understand  how his son perished on the Camino and why the son so wanted to make this journey.

RIP Mr. Friedrich, and all the other peregrinos who have passed while on the Camino.

Steps Today: 30,452

For more photos of this stretch of the Camino, see our June 25 page:
June 25, 2016: Puerta de Sahagun to El Burgo Ranero